Advice From Alumni

By Brittany Fuentes | Published December 7, 2023

Seniors going into the spring semester are thinking about what comes next after their graduation. They will have different goals to aim towards for their post-graduation journeys, and it’s intimidating to think about. 

Whether it’s starting a career or choosing to go to graduate school, recent graduates advise that they need to start thinking about it as soon as possible.

For former Kean University student Genesis Guox, a criminal justice graduate from May 2023, those hardships were felt as soon as she graduated and immediately started job-seeking.

“It was scary to me, I was nervous while constantly applying for jobs as soon as I graduated,” saysGuox. “There was pressure from myself and my parents and the whole summer was stressful, I felt thestress of finally being an adult.”

The personal pressures Guox felt, along with the pressures from her parents to look for a job that would allow her to put her degree to use and find stability within that job, were at an all-time high.

Being a first-generation college student did not help to make the pressures of this ordeal any easier for her because she was expected to achieve all the goals set by her parents and all the goals she had set for herself.

First-generation college students struggle with navigating the academic system because they lack the adequate time needed to make connections outside of school hours to help start their careers. 

College students will have different experiences post-graduation. It is normal for them to feel stressed, pressured, and discouraged, but there are things they can begin doing now to facilitate their job search.

After graduation, Guox applied to about 15 jobs through LinkedIn and Indeed and interviewed for three of them over four months before successfully acquiring a job as a clerk for the county.

Another alumnae, Davaughnia Wilson, the former editor-in-chief of TheTower, who graduated in May of 2023 with a Communication/Journalism degree, is pursuing anMS at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism while also interning at CNBC as a news desk intern.

Wilson completed an internship the summer before her senior year at The Record where she was placed with a mentor,and they would meet weekly to assess her progress and discuss life and journalism. 

She said her mentor was a big help to her, they often discussed what would come after graduation for her, whether it was grad school or finding a career. 

Guox did not complete an internship during her years at Kean due to the prolonged effects of COVID, but she does believe that an internship would have aided her in her search for a job.

Students should find a mentor or advisor to aid in their navigation of applying for and finding jobs and graduate programs suited for them,but a lack of connections can make that challenging, which is why Guox advises students to ask for help whenever they need it because it is not an easy thing to manage on their own.

Wilson always knew that she wanted to go to grad school, she was just not sure where she wanted to go but her mentor was a great help in figuring it out.

“We applied to grad school, my mentor was very much in my corner during the entire process, trying to decide what schools I wanted to go to and going there for the right reasons,” says Wilson. “He was always there with advice in general.”

Her mentor from her internship was a business journalist and he would send her internship opportunities for her to apply toonce she entered the spring semester of her senior year. He had connections in different news organizations so if he heard of any openings,he would let her know and she would apply.

“Over the summer, I was actively searching for jobs, I was actively searching for internships but I was also applying for smaller things so I could use them as practice. I put my best foot forward but if I didn’t get it, I know I did my best and I will know what to do next time,” says Wilson.

Wilson believes more than one factor contributed to her getting into grad school and her internships were not the sole reason why. She had experience with writing and reporting from her internship and from being on staff at The Tower, which she said definitely helped her. 

Wilson advises students to research the companies they are applying to and the grad programs to know what they want and ensure that wherever they decide to go there’s a chance to grow,and their goals, missions, and ethical goals align with their own. Do not apply for companies or schools because of the name or prestige, apply because it is good for you.

Career services and LinkedIn are resources that helped Wilson with her journey of finding internships. 

Wilson suggests that everyone should be open minded about internships because they are meant for people to learn and to grow from them.

Life after graduation can seem scary because no one knows what comes next,but all the graduating seniors should just face it head on because everything is going to work out. It’s scary not knowing what’s next but it is important to try to plan for the things they want, she said.

Guox suggests that college seniors also make an effort to secure an internship before they graduate because that can definitely help when it comes to finding a job. Often, companies who take interns can be interested in hiring them once they have graduated.

“Ask for help; you can’t do it all on your own,” says Guox. “You won’t have everything figured out right away but having help from others can ease the transition from college student to adult.”

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